I Don't Know Why I Even Came
by InceptionErection
Summary: He didn't know what possessed him to go back and get her, but he did. A story in which Gale went back to save the Mayor's impertinent daughter. Oneshot, Gadge, fluffy, a bit OOC. I guess it's AU since she survived. Open for expansion to full story.


**I Don't Know Why I Even Came**

**Summary: He didn't know what possessed him to go back and get her, but he did. A story in which Gale went back to save the Mayor's impertinent daughter.**

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Gale doesn't even know why he's out here, trudging toward the center of town- the exact opposite direction he needs to be going to get out- to get the to the Undersee's house.

By awful chance, and some supernatural force, he looked at the bucket they always delivered her fruit in -in which the gloves of her father's that she leant him on a bitter cold day when they delivered something Katniss insisted on (He didn't even care to remember it was so obsolete) that he still hadn't returned after all there months- and felt the awful pull in his stomach that he should go see to it that the mayor and his family should get out.

He supposed the mayor had _something_ to do with the laxed security with the peacekeepers all these years so that he could hunt, so he felt some loyalty to the family but he wasn't sure if it was enough to even justify going to their house in the dead of the night to save them from what was sure to be complete desctruction of their home.

When it came down to it, they were all part of District Twelve, they all deserved to survive something they had no part in. And that's when Gale decided to despise his little sliver of a conscience.

He almost decides to hightail it out of there to the nearest part of the fence, when he relized he was standing in the front yard of the Undersee house. He curses himself for moving so quickly without even reconsidering coming here. He didn't want to babysit this family, he already had his own and the Everdeens to take care of. Lead through the woods on foot toward the rumored 'District Thirteen Underground'. If that was a sham, then...well he didn't know what, build some cabins deep in the forest maybe.

He'd barely had time to knock twice before the door was thrown open by the only child -he can't really call her a child, can he?- staring him in the face, obvious signs of tears down her cheeks.

"Gale, I-" She chokes "I don't know what to do..." The rest of whatever she was saying was so garbled Gale had to physically hold his hand over her mouth to slow her down.

"Stop talking. Grab anything that will fit into a small backpack. You have forty-five seconds." He shoves her back in the house and heads toward her family's kitchen stuffing any non-perishable in his own pack he can get his hands on.

True to his word, less than the alotted time later, she rushes down the steps with her backpack he had seen her take to middle school slung on her back -wait, why did he remember that?- and a hastily put together outfit. She was silent the entire journey to the fence, when the hoverplanes started well, hovering, over the silently chaotic district.

She was like a deer caught in a headlamp when the first bomb rains, over in the Seam. The second one was not so far from where they had been at her house, enough to make his ears ring, and knock her to her knees. He hefted her up and over his shoulder when she continued to stare blankly at where her house had been, practically throwing her through the wires of the dead fence.

They ran until she collapsed, not used to the physical exertion of the trip. And probably the emotional exertion of the enitre night. Everyone had been on edge that night, especially Gale. If anyone, it was Gale.

After he finally realized that _she _wanted Peeta no matter how many times she told him she was confused about how she felt. And if anything solidified his suspicions, it was their display on the beach.

Before he knew it, she was bent over a log, heaving into the forestry. He awkwardly held her hair out of her face and rested his hand in the middle of her back, something out of character for the young man.

He draped his arm loosely around her as she sobbed thereafter, and waited for her to calm down a bit before he asked what happened to her parents.

"There was a knock at the door right after the television screens went black, and my father made me hide in the pantry, seeing the fleet of peacekeepers outside. They barged in before I could even close the door fully and hit him with their guns until her lay bleeding on the floor, then they dragged him out and that was the last I saw of him. I don't even know what happened to my mother," A fresh wave of tears continued to pour from her eyes. "I didn't even get to say good bye. I have no one left here."

"Come on, we need to see if we can find everyone else that got out." He said, taking one last look at the burning remnants of their homes.

"Gale," She said urgently, taking a vice grip on his forearms desperately. "what's going to happen to me? To us? We're all going to get stuck here and the Capitol will find us and take us out. They'll kill me like they killed my father, like they did all the people who didn't get out in time! We're just a ticking time bomb waiting to be found and destroyed! All of this will have been for nothing..." She continued to ramble on, without any sign of stopping or shutting up, only to wash her mouth out briefly with water and chewing on a mint leaf -even then she found a way to ramble on about her iminent death.

So Gale did the only thing his not-so-rational mind could think of at the moment. He grabbed her face between his hands and kissed her hard, but tenderly -was that an oxymoron? He didn't really care either way.

By this point his mind was so cluttered with everything that had been happening in his life he just needed something to change the monotony of it all, and boy did this cover it. A Seam boy kissing the Mayor's daughter? One would've never guessed.

"Shut up, Madge." He said rather softly, or as softly as Gale could be.

"How dare you! Do you not know what just happened?" She asked angrily, stepping away from him.

"Yeah, and lingering on it isn't going to bring the district back." He answered, vexed. "I don't know why I even came. To your house." He said, running his hand through his hair as a calming gesture.

"Obviously not. You should have just left me, we're gonna die out here anyway. By the Capitol's hand or our own."

"You are so pessimistic, do you not realize the woods are my home away from home?" He asked, smirking. "Look, I'll make sure the Capitol doesn't blow you up or anything."

"Is that flattery or are you just trying to calm me down, Gale Hawthorne?" She asked still angry with him, but finding it hard to when he's standing right there with his stupid satisfied, ruggedly handsome, face. Never would she ever have guessed that Gale would kiss _her._

"Hm, both, I suppose." He answered guffly. Sure Madge was pretty, and softspoken, and nice but she was a merchant, and he, a Seam kid. They just didn't match up. Unless of course you were thrown into a sick game where you had to fight to the death to keep yourself from starving or being killed, but we digress.

They were all the same now he supposed, now that they didn't have that invisible line separating them from being the poor to the rich. Sure, he blamed anyone he could for the intensity of his poverty, but what could the Mayor's daughter do about it? So he stopped that a while ago, whether he knew it or not.

He didn't know what he was going to do with the Mayor's daughter once they found Thirteen, if they ever did.

He didn't even know why he went over there to check on that family.

But he looks down at the young woman he towers over by almost an entire foot, and he knows why he went to that house in the middle of town.

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**A/N: **Yeah so um...Here's my Gadge ficlet XDDDD I haven't decided if I want to expand this into a story or not, it's really your decision I suppose. I just wanted to get this out of my system, though it's probably not very good. There just isn't enough Gadge love around here (I personally think it's because they left her out of the movie but whateva.)

Anyway, I know he kisses her pretty soon after she threw up (BLACH) but I tried to make it so she wouldn't taste so much like barf by making her eat a mint leaf and wash her mouth out, and as it said, his mind wasn't feeling too rational so don't beat me up pls!

**Good? Bad? Lemme know!**


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